The Bloody Sonnets is a cycle of 32 sonnets written between August and September of 1914, during the first months of World War I. Unlike many poets who were enthusiastically pro-war as fighting began, Hviezdoslav chose to reflect on war’s horrors. Sonnets 1-16 describe the catastrophe, while Sonnets 17-32 ponder how it might end and what may come after.
Read an excerpt from The Bloody Sonnets
More About This Title in the Press
- “Woe to the Victors: Recognizing a major poet of the First World War” by Zuzana Slobodová in The Times Literary Supplement, June 21, 2019
- “Thoughts on a Lecture about Translating Poetry” by John Minahane, February 2019
- “How to translate famous anti-war sonnets into English?” by Radka Minarechová in The Slovak Spectator, November 2018
- “National Library adds Slovakia’s The Bloody Sonnets to its collection” in Diplomat
- “Honouring a singular Slovak voice: The Bloody Sonnets by Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav” by Joseph Schreiber on Roughghosts, October 30, 2018
- The Bloody Sonnets: Presentations of Slovak anti-war masterpiece commemorating the centenary of the ending of the Great War
- “Your Friday update from Spain, Morocco, and Slovakia!” in Asymptote, February 2017